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Green Manifesto

There’s never a dull moment where Ireland are concerned. After a brave Euros qualification campaign came the humiliation of the finals themselves. Then the recent last gasp win over mighty Kazakhstan. As the World Cup qualifier campaign gathers pace, three of the lynch-pins of the squad discuss Trapp’s reputation for managerial stubborness, his controversial selection of players from the lower echelons of British soccer and tell us what’s on their iPhone playlists

Stuart Clark, 02 Oct 2012

“To be honest, the goal didn’t really mean much at the time because we’d lost against a team we thought we could beat,” the affable 27-year-old reflects. “Now I’m like, ‘I scored in a major tournament – that’s alright!’”

Could the lads hear the phantom whistler in the crowd?

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t celebrate the goal properly at first. I heard the whistle and thought there must have been a foul or an offside. It was only when I saw the officials trotting back that I realised it had been given. The whistle was really loud – a couple of the lads pulled up during the game because they thought the ref had blown. I don’t know if they got the bloke who did it. Because it didn’t affect the score it’s been forgotten, but if it had it would’ve be one of the tournament’s big talking points.”

While failing to get anything out of the Croatia game still haunts him – “We just made silly mistakes, which were punished” – Sean reckons that Spain are pretty much unbeatable at the moment.

“It’s ridiculous; you try to imagine what playing against a team that has Torres, Silva, Fabregas, Iniesta, Xavi and Alonso in it is going to be like, but you can’t. Spain are up there with the classic Brazil and Holland sides; there are no weak links. It’s not just their ability to keep possession, but also the way they get the ball back on the rare occasion they do give it away. For most of the Spain game we were chasing shadows. Normally you walk away from a defeat thinking, ‘Right, we’ve learned something we can use to do better against them next time’, but the only thing we learned in Gdansk was how bloody good Spain are!”

St. Ledger holding a down a regular Ireland place didn’t look very likely six years ago when by his own admission he made a “plonker” of himself on national TV.

“I was at Peterborough when Sky did the Big Ron Manager series that had Ron Atkinson coming in to help the actual ‘borough manager, Steve Bleasdale, who I really didn’t get on with at all,” he reminisces none too fondly. “They caught one of our big bust-ups and me being mouthy on camera. I’d love to say it was down to the way they edited it, but it was all my own fault. It was a stunt to raise the profile of the club and I suppose it worked, though not always in the way intended. I watched it with my mum and dad and felt so embarrassed. We weren’t that well off when I was a kid and they gave a lot up for me to play football, so I felt like I’d let them down. Looking back it was a lesson I needed to learn. I think I’m pretty well behaved now!”



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